Most residences are provided with garages which are either separated from the main residence or are directly connected to the house or through a breezeway, and have a connecting doorway from the garage into the house for entrance or egress therefrom; the garage having space for one or more vehicles. Of these garages, many have one or more overhead garage doors which travel on pairs of generally parallel tracks at the sides of the door opening from a closed vertical position to a substantially horizontal open position a short distance below the ceiling of the garage. Although a garage door may be manually opened or closed by the owner, the vast majority are provided with a reversible electric motor for raising and/or lowering the door, the motor being actuated by a wall switch on a wall of the garage or through a remote radio transmitter carried in the vehicle to send a signal from the vehicle driver to a receiver operatively connected to the motor to open or close the door. Thus, in inclement weather conditions, the driver is not obligated to leave the vehicle to open or close the door.
One problem with an automated overhead garage door is that, occasionally the door is unintentionally left in the open position when leaving the garage. When this happens, the security of the residence may be compromised by unauthorized entry into the garage and/or access to the house by burglars by breaking into the house through the connecting door leading from the garage to the house. Obviously, such a security breach is unwelcome and may result in property losses of objects stolen from the garage and/or house.
There have been a number of proposed solutions to this problem, however, many of the solutions are mechanical in nature and require specially manufactured parts. Also, electronic solutions to the problem have been suggested, but these systems lack versatility and have disadvantages regarding power supply and limitations in the timer function. Further, problems may occur with a premature closing of the garage door that might result in the door closing on a vehicle or locking a person out of his house. The present invention overcomes these problems in a simplified solution for automatically closing the garage door and is in conformity with United Underwriters Laboratory regulations.